Saturday night, I was headbanging to Ultimatum at the Golden West Saloon. Last night (Wednesday), I was right next door at the Launchpad, for The Dirty Novels, Lions, and SuperGiant. At a little before 1:00am this morning, I left, drunkenly staggering right by the Golden West, briefly glancing into the dark window (it was closed).

I would never see it again.

It's destroyed. A fire erupted at about 6 this morning (WTF happened?!). When I walked by it again on my way to work a few hours later, it was totally gutted. I could see right through the front of the building, out into the parking lot behind it.

So.. a bar burned down. What's the big deal? It's just a bar, right? No. This place was special. It was fucking gorgeous, easily the nicest-looking bar in Albuquerque. Classically decorated decades ago.. timeless. Red velvet-covered walls, chandeliers, tin roof, the Puccini opera posters -- they're gone.

I saw many many shows there, mostly metal. I particularly remember one snowy Tuesday night about 4 years ago, seeing my favorite local band, Wisdom of the Leech. I was the only fan who showed up, and they still played for me.

I had my first Bridgeport IPA there. It happened after I tried a "new" (at the time) awful-tasting cloyingly-sweet stout (I won't name names), and I had to wash the taste out of my mouth. "Do you have any IPAs?" I asked. I wasn't even a hophead at the time; I just wanted some bitterness. Mathias served me a Bridgeport and I fell in love with it. Over the next few years, I didn't even have to order; Ryan or Christine would see me and start walking to the right tap.

I've brought dates there, been shot down there, got "lucky" there, sulked there, and celebrated there. And rocked, rocked, and rocked.

Read the musicians' reactions at rocksquawk, see photos at The Alibi. KOB, New Mexico Business Weekly.

The Launchpad, next door and also damaged, is closed for a few months too. It will be back. Serious doubts about the Golden West, though, and even if they rebuild, it won't be the same. It was the one bar where the original fixtures will actually be missed. Every other place in this town was replaceable. That one wasn't.

This comes from shadow wrought, stoolpigeon, JC, Smitty, and originally, I think, RM6f9

Post a comment to this thread, and I will:

1. Tell you why I befriended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, etc..
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
7. In return, you must post this in your Journal/Blag/whatever.


Update: Ahh, the 2 minute rule... killing my productivity from answering all these... I'll get to you eventually, but it'll be off and on over the next day or two. Sorry!

About Giuliani. And not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Next, I will post a list of stocks I intend to go long on. You should buy puts on them, even if you have to mortgage your house...

I've had to write a bunch of bash scripts at work lately, and they're all long pipelines.

No threads, no shared memory, no dealing with (or even having to think about) race conditions, no complications. Just lots of processes connected with pipes.

But if I were to write the same stuff in a "real language," it probably wouldn't have been as parallel. I'd just have a big loop that does a bunch of things to one chunk of data at a time, instead of a bunch of processes at that do one thing at a time.

I wonder if there's something wrong with "real languages" -- something that the "Unix philosophy" got right, yet rarely trickles up into bigger apps, where you'd think there would be even more opportunity to parallelize, not less. Hmm.

I work at a place that runs a fairly (locally) popular website. We sometimes get orders for ads from a company who just gave us one of these to run. I gather that the behavior in question is intermittent, so it was just dumb luck that it happened to me, so that I realized WTF was going on and killed it.

So they aren't screening this stuff, huh? That means I have to? Shit. I don't know how to screen for this. I hate Flash. I hated it before, but now I really fucking hate Flash.

The Larry Craig thing happened weeks ago, but it's just now hitting its stride. I got a double-barrel blast of absurdity this morning.

First, one of my cow-orkers reviewed the Minneapolis airport men's bathroom. Too funny.

But it gets even more absurd, in an ACLU quotation from this USA Today article:

Instead of having an undercover officer "trap" people in the bathroom, Romero says the airport should put up a sign that prohibits customers from having sex in the men's room.

For some reason, this reminds me of the Beagle Bros floppy warnings, like for example, don't feed your floppies to an alligator. I wonder if we're seeing the genesis of complete list of activities that are prohibited in airport bathrooms. Until we have that list, you might want to think twice before you shoot up any heroin, wager on a dogfight, or run a child-labor sweatshop in an airport bathroom.

Just a small pile of soc-pol bile that I thought I'd share with you.

I'm sure you'll recognize the phrase that is being re-rendered here. The original pat-phrase may have pissed off some of you too.

A left-wing libertarian is a conservative-isolationist that has a bong, and likes kittens.
A right-wing libertarian is the same, only they enjoy most animals--with fries.

A key point to note with this Western concept of libertarian is that old daemon Patriotism. It should also be noted that it very often is accompanied by tribalism(s) [always,surly!].

Reading Ben Franklin characterized as having a staunch pro state's-rights position and his being a deeply religious man is just as bad as reading another brand of libtard make claims of Ben's life long support for; pot, free-love and trans-statism. [I'm like a shark!, hehe]

The USA is not alone in this error. It has a German and French version too. Not to mention the British variation, now made more popular with the 'V' movie. And error it is, as none of this addresses what the world will look like once success is at hand. The future beyond the moment of victory is a shadowy place filled with [implicitly] empty hopes and very few ideas.

It can be [and all too often is] argued that the solutions will come to mind once you are there, but you know... in most cases in history it only gets filled with the same old shit--yet again. YMMV HTH HAND ETC.

It leads one to think that the 'all politics is local' adage was out of date once armoured limos and international banking came on line.

Sorry folks(et al), but any ideas now *will have to* save the whole fucking world. No longer are our socio-political boundaries set by the distance you can hit something. Keep thinking though, there's bound to be something that'll work better than this mess we've got now. Until then.

TYAITJ:
#83887:
QUESTION: Can you bring us up to date on what's happening in Vienna? And would the U.S. accept a resolution that did not contain a trigger?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think it's appropriate for us to speculate from here as to the final outcome. We are -- we have made clear what our view is. The Secretary has made clear that we have pushed the view that this needs to be referred to the Security Council, and that we would see whether there's a consensus. That process is still underway. We're -- how far we will get to, whether we can get it or not, still don't know. But there are consultations going on among Board members in Vienna. We're trying to seek agreement on a text that addresses the Board's concerns about Iran's nuclear activities. The Board, we think, is united in the view that Iran must cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, must come clean about its program, and suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.

The Board has called on Iran repeatedly to take those steps since last year. We remain deeply concerned that Iran continues to defy the Board's requests. So those consultations are ongoing, and, at this point, I can't predict exactly where they'll come out.

QUESTION: Yesterday, in an interview, Secretary Powell said that there had been some progress. Can you describe specifically what the progress has been?

MR. BOUCHER: No. Again, the process is underway. We think -- I think Under Secretary Bolton, when he was in Geneva last Friday, and as I said Friday, acknowledged there have been tactical differences between the Europeans and us about how to proceed. We have been making efforts to close those gaps, and thought we were making some progress on that. But whether -- I can't -- it's an ongoing thing. I can't try to define it precisely at this moment.

FYAITJ :
#45884: Colin Powell "...we have a common goal, a common purpose -- and that is to give sovereignty back to the Iraqi people as fast as possible".

Texttoon:
Wax on ruled paper/scan/gif : A child like crayon drawing of a big military airplane flying above a standard green lawn, tree, box house set. Crude text captions the items; house, mom, me, dog, and plane.

Welcome and other bland salutations of no import.

Six years. What should be said? Nice feature, um ...we've all had a lot of fun posting all kinds of odd shit.... Tons of people have read and commented on the users journals. Many of them have been truly outstanding, including some of the comments. FrontPaging JEs is now in place and seems to work well.

On a more personal level, I've done a lot to see how far you could push the content level in these things. Both, on a per entry basis, and over time with some longer sequences of posts. As for the content qualities ... you the reader are, were, and will be the judge.

Many thanks for the use of your eyes and thoughts. Also, my thanks Taco and co, and to those of you who have, and will post here in this Journal System here on Slashdot.

Just a small quote to share. No framing needed.

Quote:
TRYGAEUS:

Come, then, to prayers; to prayers, quick!-- Oh! Peace, mighty queen, venerated goddess, thou, who presidest over choruses and at nuptials, deign to accept the sacrifices we offer thee.

SERVANT:

Receive it, greatly honoured mistress, and behave not like the coquettes, who half open the door to entice the gallants, draw back when they are stared at, to return once more if a man passes on. But do not act like this to us.

TRYGAEUS:

No, but like an honest woman, show thyself to thy worshippers, who are worn with regretting thee all these thirteen years. Hush the noise of battle, be a true Lysimacha to us. Put an end to this tittle-tattle, to this idle babble, that set us defying one another. Cause the Greeks once more to taste the pleasant beverage of friendship and temper all hearts with the gentle feeling of forgiveness. Make excellent commodities flow to our markets, fine heads of garlic, early cucumbers, apples, pomegranates and nice little cloaks for the slaves; make them bring geese, ducks, pigeons and larks from Boeotia and baskets of eels from Lake Copais; we shall all rush to buy them, disputing their possession with Morychus, Teleas, Glaucetes and every other glutton. Melanthius will arrive on the market last of all; 'twill be, "no more eels, all sold!" and then he'll start a-groaning and exclaiming as in his monologue of Medea, "I am dying, I am dying! Alas! I have let those hidden in the beet escape me!" And won't we laugh? These are the wishes, mighty goddess, which we pray thee to grant.

SERVANT:

Take the knife and slaughter the sheep like a finished cook.

TRYGAEUS:

No, the goddess does not wish it.

SERVANT:

And why not?

TRYGAEUS:

Blood cannot please Peace, so let us spill none upon her altar. Therefore go and sacrifice the sheep in the house, cut off the legs and bring them here; thus the carcase will be saved for the chorus.

CHORUS:

You, who remain here, get chopped wood and everything needed for the sacrifice ready.

TRYGAEUS:

Don't I look like a diviner preparing his mystic fire?

CHORUS:

Undoubtedly. Will anything that it behooves a wise man to know escape you? Don't you know all that a man should know, who is distinguished for his wisdom and inventive daring?

TRYGAEUS:

There! the wood catches. Its smoke blinds poor Stilbides. I am now going to bring the table and thus be my own slave.

CHORUS:

You have braved a thousand dangers to save your sacred town. All honour to you! Your glory will be ever envied.

Will more frequent postings return? You may ask (ha surely!). I'm still in visual mode at the moment. And will likely be doing images, mostly, for a while more. However, events may urge me to post at madman speed again.

In that regard I'd point out the date of this marking of dates. My estimation that the 'W'-Key war would end (or be ended) about a year ago is growing more off by the day. Most of the issues I've highlighted still remain dark in the mainstream media(s). The crop of hopefuls for Uncle/Aunt Sam are all quite thick. Several other elections in other places too. Which is bound to keep my bile ducts well stocked with vitriolic spewings. So do take a look in here now and then.

Texttoon:
Fumetti : Stock photo of Rupert Murdoch standing with Hillary Clinton. Overlayed speech bubble has Murdoch saying "I'll make them call you bitch." To which Hillary says "Oh please." He continues with "And make all my cartoonists show you wearing Bill's boxers." Her reply "I am so hot right now."

Some intrepid geek has found a tiny photo of three guys in the hologram on the surface of the Windows Vista DVD. How widespread is this? (Is it on your copy of the DVD?) Who are these men?

Texttoon:
Fumetti : Reflective foil on heavy stock. Overprinted caption in red keylined-sanserif at the bottom; "I CAN HAS PEACE?"

We went through this a few years back when it first started, and I'm already linked to about 20 or 30 of you, but I thought I'd check if there's anyone I missed. You should be able to figure out my "real" email address from my slashdot profile.

Oh, and Dr. Helen is the second hottest 40-something babe in America. Here she is on the latest academic crypto-fascism. While I'm not a current gun owner and don't consider myself a conservative, I find this sort of thing reprehensible.

i've been posting over at multiply pretty regularly, mostly my inane music crap. so, i thought i'd update the journal here with the links i've been posting (you know, for those who: a. care, b. haven't gone to mulitply).

1. Lifes Whatever
C. Sustain
-. Forget I Am Here
o. Dragons Song

there will be more. i just wanted to keep this updated.

Q. What's orange and sounds like a parrot?

A. A carrot!

(Try it out on a seven-year-old)

(Reposted from Multiply.)

Mostly I've been able to block out thinking too much about Blacksburg and Cho the past few days just by plunging into work, dealing with the kids, joking around as usual and so on, while still at least symbolically wearing my Hokies stuff (I have a number of T-shirts, a sweatshirt, and a couple ballcaps).

However, it's hard to relate how much Blacksburg means to me personally. It was my childhood home, and I had about as ideal a childhood as it gets. It was (and I suppose still is) the place I always wanted to return to someday. It was, for me, as close to heaven on earth as I could imagine, as crazy as that may sound to some people. Thus it is all the more maddening when unwanted associations creep in when I think about it.

Just now, I was reading a bedtime story to the kids. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, an old favorite. Which I read over and over again as a kid...in Newman Library on the Tech campus while my parents hit the books for their graduate studies. But rather than think of happy memories, I think of a maniac brandishing guns and rambling into a camera.

And that's just what he wanted. So in a sense he (or the demons within him) "wins". And that pisses me off.

As an aside, it also shows how around the bend he was rambling about Mercedeses and whatnot in Blacksburg. Most people would think of Blacksburg as being borderline hick town. (The surrounding area would be real hick town for most outsiders.) To call people there snobbish or wealthy is nothing short of amazing. Tech is very much a middle-class school.

The other thing, though, that actually hurts on top of it all is the media coverage, which has been astonishing for its insensitivity and aggressiveness towards the people in Blacksburg. Every interview I have seen, whether it is with professors, students or staff, has been of an accusing tone, as if they are to blame. Cho's roommate was practically called negligent for not telling the school administration Cho didn't talk to people. Some anchors have openly called for people to file lawsuits. One professor, a poet and English professor who had been one of Cho's teachers, was cut off in an interview for not going along with all the second-guessing. The utter lack of human decency in the name of ratings combined with inane commentary on the level of verbal diarrhea has been shocking.

The thing that does at least restore some balance to it, however, has been the support from "rival" universities, not all of it symbolic, either. Florida State and the University of Miami are contributing money to Tech memorial scholarships as just one example of many I've heard of. Naturally that doesn't get reported in the mainstream media, who are apparently only interested in second-guessing the entire Tech administration and community, not even giving them the chance to grieve while sticking microphones in any face they can find. (My parents wrote some scathing letters to MSNBC and CNN tearing into them over the coverage.)

Other small gestures have helped, too. The spontaneous decision of the Washington Nationals to wear Tech ballcaps during the Braves game was a nice touch earlier in the week. Students at various schools around the country have started wearing maroon and orange. And as much as I dislike his politics, I appreciate President Bush coming down for a visit.

Tech itself has also done some gestures that are nice. The students who died will all get their degrees posthumously at Commencement. There will be scholarship funds started for both of the murdered professors. Students will also get generous terms for completing their studies this semester.

For what it's worth, tomorrow has unofficially been declared Hokie Nation Day -- wear maroon and orange if you want to show you care and show sympathy for the victims and their families.

Even so, it still hurts when an innocent moment of reading a book to my kids instantly leads me to think of the deaths of over thirty people and the ravings of a madman...and, for all the overwrought sense of it, of "paradise lost".